[sudo-discuss] Dystopia Watch: Surveillance drones coming to a cafe near you.

[Matthew D. Howell]

>> If everybody had a head mounted camera, police brutality would become non existent.
not sure if non existant or spectator sport
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – >8
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Matthew D. Howell
misterinterrupt, tHe M4d swiTcH, the RuinMechanic
cell: (617) 755-1481
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On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Jehan Tremback <jehan.tremback at gmail.com> wrote:
> If everybody had a head mounted camera, police brutality would become non
> existent.
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> (Matthew: I see your comment was posted to me but not posted to list, so
>> I've redacted it from this posting to the list, which is in reply to
>> you.  If you want to post your comment to the list, feel free.  Everyone
>> else: it wasn't a scathing criticism or something scandalous, in fact I
>> think Matthew may have wanted to post it to list but didn't hit Reply
>> All.  That said, it's up to him.)
>>
>> The surveillance ecosystem is already enormous, and the vast majority is
>> in the private sector.
>>
>> General rule:  "Dissipative structures form ecosystems around
>> entropy-gradients."  Organisms are dissipative structures; work is
>> energy-conversion.  This explains much of human social behavior as well
>> as physical ecosystem behavior.
>>
>> For example people want music and they're willing to work hard (convert
>> energy) to get it.  Energy conversion produces an entropy gradient.  The
>> music industry middlemen (RIAA) insert themselves into the path between
>> sources & sinks (artists & audiences, and that relationship is two-way)
>> to tap as much energy out of this process as possible, in the form of
>> money.  Illegal file downloaders as well as self-produced bands who use
>> Creative Commons or Copyleft, are seen by the music industry as
>> short-circuits in the system.
>>
>> Consumer behavior in general is an enormous energy source (money
>> source), and the goal of capitalism is ultimately to surround every
>> consumer with the equivalent of a Dyson sphere to capture as much of
>> their work output as possible.  The modern surveillance ecosystem is all
>> about "predicting and controlling" individual behavior, toward that end.
>>
>> So, per Matthew, one way to counter this is to set up a countervailing
>> ecosystem, with entropy gradients tilted in such a manner as to produce
>> incentives to fight back against the surveillance.
>>
>> As for defending privacy: privacy is equivalent to free speech.  As a
>> lawyer told us when I was working on "crypto for the masses" in the
>> early 1980s, the right to freedom of speech necessarily includes the
>> right to choose your audience.  Today we commonly use the term "chilling
>> effect" to refer to what happens when you can't choose your audience,
>> e.g. when your boss and the credit bureaux etc. are likely to be
>> watching you on "social" networks.
>>
>> It's been said more than once, that you can tell when someone's boss is
>> watching them on Facebook: all of a sudden their comments go totally
>> bland (not that any of us should be using Facebook unless we're
>> deliberately using it as a publicity tool for political or other
>> campaigns).  That's the chilling effect in action.  And if DARPA and
>> Google have their way, where everyone's every conversation, private and
>> in-person included, is recorded and archived and made searchable, the
>> chill will be so total that it will make life in East Germany under the
>> Stasi look like a picnic by comparison.
>>
>> Knowledge is power: when THEY know all about YOU, but you know nothing
>> about them, who has the power?
>>
>> As the old song said, "Getting to know you / getting to know all about
>> you..."
>>
>> Not to mention, "He sees you when you're sleeping / he knows when you're
>> awake. / He knows if you've been bad or good / so be good for (getting
>> lots of presents) sake!"
>>
>> Going back thousands of years, societies envisioned deities as concerned
>> with individual "moral behavior" (i.e. sex) as a way of strengthening
>> tribal cohesion.  Western cultures in particular evolved with the very
>> strong sense that their deities were keeping a close watch over them.
>> This gave people a sense of comfort and protection.
>>
>> Today as agnosticism, atheism, and various forms of transpersonal
>> beliefs (in effect religion without personalized deities) are on the
>> rise in the geek sector, the sense of comfort from "being watched over"
>> has transplanted itself from the deity to the surveillance
>> superstructure.  Many people are secretly fond of the idea that Big
>> Google is reading every word they write, listening to every phone call
>> they make, and following them around.  This is nothing more than a new
>> deity taking the place of the old one:  "someone big who watches over us."
>>
>> It seems to me that a necessary part of the evolution of rational people
>> away from the need for personalized deities, is to get away from the
>> need for the "comfort" of being watched over.  Individuals who are
>> rational self-aware autonomous moral actors have no need of being
>> watched over by anything other than our own consciences.
>>
>> -G.
>>
>>
>>
>> =====
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13-03-05-Tue 2:43 PM, Matthew D. Howell wrote:
>>
>> (Comment was sent to me in private email, not to the list, so if Matthew
>> wishes he can repost it to the list.)
>>
>>
>> =====
>>
>>  On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net>
>> wrote:
>> >> Re. Anthony, Rachel, Matthew, re "masking audio."
>> >>
>> >> That was the first thing I tried when I found out about NSA's voice
>> >> recognition back in 1980 (if I recall correctly it was the October 1980
>> >> issue of _The Progressive_ that referred to the HARVEST program,
>> >> keyword
>> >> rec and voice rec, and some stuff in a British paper or magazine also,
>> >> I
>> >> may still have copies around).
>> >>
>> >> The idea was that instead of using a voice scrambler or crypto (which
>> >> required a device at each end of a conversation), voice rec could be
>> >> defeated from one end of a phone call by saturating the channel with
>> >> just enough noise.  What killed that idea was the fact that long
>> >> distance telephony used T-carrier that split up the conversation into
>> >> two different speech paths between telco central offices (e.g. me to
>> >> you, you to me).  So a device would still be needed at both ends, and
>> >> one may as well just use a scrambler.  That led me down the trail to
>> >> details about scramblers (bottom line, analog scramblers aren't any
>> >> good) and ultimately to cryptography by 1982 - 1983.
>> >>
>> >> Re. "every person's voice has a distinct signature that can be
>> >> recognized...", yes, thus voiceprint recognition, which was 99.6%
>> >> accurate in 1960 according to an article in _Telephony_ magazine at the
>> >> time (I may still have that around also).  Fast-forward to today at the
>> >> speed of Moore's law, and you can be quite sure that voiceprint
>> >> recognition is used for tracking.
>> >>
>> >> This is one of the things I find most pernicious about the decline in
>> >> the use of landlines and the rise in the number of people with "mobile
>> >> only":  A landline enables you to design, build, connect, and use any
>> >> hardware you choose, including digital voice crypto devices, and
>> >> including computers running digital voice crypto.  And with a landline
>> >> phone, when the receiver is on the hook, the microphone is physically
>> >> disconnected by the hookswitch, a visible set of switch contacts inside
>> >> the phone.
>> >>
>> >> Mobile devices are sealed black boxes, the ultimate revenge against
>> >> phone phreaks & phone hackers, where you have no final control over
>> >> what's in the black box.  Just like the bad old days of Ma Bell when it
>> >> was quasi-illegal to connect "foreign attachments" to your home phone
>> >> line.  Even a voice crypto app on a mobile device is questionable at
>> >> best, because you have no way of knowing if at some level it's being
>> >> undermined by something else in the device that you can't detect.  By
>> >> analogy, crypto on your laptop, but a keystroke logger hiding between
>> >> you and the crypto app.
>> >>
>> >> The mere possibility of being able to hack the hardware provides more
>> >> security than any sealed box, and best of all is when you can design &
>> >> build your own hardware, such as when people build their own desktop
>> >> machines from components.
>> >>
>> >> Anyway, I agree with Rachel & Matthew that audio masking isn't
>> >> sufficient because it can be undone by the watchers.  It may have to do
>> >> in some situations, but it would be better to design more "aggressive"
>> >> personal defense tech such as wearable "resonant audio cannons" or
>> >> something else.
>> >>
>> >> -G.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> =====
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 13-03-05-Tue 11:21 AM, Matthew D. Howell wrote:
>> >>> @Rachel The state of the technology for recognizing and separating
>> >>> patterns in audio is advanced enough to overcome that sort of thing.
>> >>> Every person's voice has a distinct signature that can be recognized.
>> >>> I would venture a guess that some kind of encrypted digital signal
>> >>> transmission would be the best way to keep any sonic communication
>> >>> private in the most extreme of situations. (most interested party with
>> >>> the best technology at their disposal)
>> >>> – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – >8
>> >>> /V\ /-\ + +  |–| ø \/\/ ∂ £ £
>> >>> –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
>> >>> Matthew D. Howell
>> >>> misterinterrupt, tHe M4d swiTcH, the RuinMechanic
>> >>> cell: (617) 755-1481
>> >>> –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:16 AM, rachel lyra hospodar
>> >>> <rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>> Wouldn't it need to be non-commercially available music, so they
>> >>>> couldn't
>> >>>> just find the audio data of the track, invert its wave, and cancel it
>> >>>> out of
>> >>>> the recording?
>> >>>>
>> >>>> CACOPHONY FOR THE REVOLUTION!
>> >>>>
>> >>>> mediumreality.com
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Mar 5, 2013 10:23 AM, "Steve Berl" <steveberl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>>> You could carry a boombox around playing loud music where ever you
>> >>>>> go.
>> >>>>> Perhaps this would be the end of earbuds. :-)
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Anthony Di Franco
>> >>>>> <di.franco at gmail.com>
>> >>>>> wrote:
>> >>>>>> People have rendered surveillance cameras useless with very bright
>> >>>>>> IR
>> >>>>>> LEDs in their fields of view.
>> >>>>>> Could something similar be done for sound recording devices?
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> On Mar 5, 2013 6:17 AM, "Anon195714" <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net>
>> >>>>>> wrote:
>> >>>>>>> Yo's-
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Something I forgot to add re. DARPA's desire for universal
>> >>>>>>> recording of
>> >>>>>>> face-to-face conversations.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> What's the ideal device for doing all that recording?
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> How'bout something you wear?  How'bout something that "everyone"
>> >>>>>>> wears?,
>> >>>>>>> or even a significant fraction of "everyone"?
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Like maybe Google Glasses.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Always on, camera and mic always "connected" to "the cloud."
>> >>>>>>> Orwell's
>> >>>>>>> telescreen gone mobile.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Everyone who wears them will become, in effect, _unpaid
>> >>>>>>> surveillance
>> >>>>>>> drones_ watching their family and friends, not from up in the sky,
>> >>>>>>> but
>> >>>>>>> from up close where every word can be heard.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Some will say "oh, there's no stopping technology." People said
>> >>>>>>> that
>> >>>>>>> about the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb.  But public outcry
>> >>>>>>> led
>> >>>>>>> first to treaties and then to progressive degrees of nuclear
>> >>>>>>> disarmament.  We haven't used that technology since it was first
>> >>>>>>> used in
>> >>>>>>> WW2.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> We can stop pernicious tech if we choose.  We can refuse, we can
>> >>>>>>> withdraw consent, we do not have to press the Buy button.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Technology should liberate and empower people.  "Conveniences with
>> >>>>>>> a few
>> >>>>>>> strings attached" are not liberation, they're puppet-strings.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> It's all about control: technology that you can control, vs.
>> >>>>>>> technology
>> >>>>>>> that can control you.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> -G.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> =====
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> On 13-03-05-Tue 1:50 AM, Anon195714 wrote:
>> >>>>>>>> Yo's-
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> This just in:
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> "DARPA wants to make [voice recognition/transcription] systems so
>> >>>>>>>> accurate, you’ll be able to easily record, transcribe and recall
>> >>>>>>>> all
>> >>>>>>>> the
>> >>>>>>>> conversations you ever have. ... Imagine living in a world where
>> >>>>>>>> every
>> >>>>>>>> errant utterance you make is preserved forever. ... DARPA
>> >>>>>>>> [awarded
>> >>>>>>>> U.Texas comp sci researcher Matt Lease]... $300,000... over two
>> >>>>>>>> years
>> >>>>>>>> to
>> >>>>>>>> study the new project, called “Blending Crowdsourcing with
>> >>>>>>>> Automation
>> >>>>>>>> for Fast, Cheap, and Accurate Analysis of Spontaneous Speech.”"
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> "The idea is that business meetings or even conversations with
>> >>>>>>>> your
>> >>>>>>>> friends and family could be stored in archives and easily
>> >>>>>>>> searched.
>> >>>>>>>> The
>> >>>>>>>> stored recordings could be held in servers, owned either by
>> >>>>>>>> individuals
>> >>>>>>>> or their employers. ... The answer, Lease says, is in widespread
>> >>>>>>>> use
>> >>>>>>>> of
>> >>>>>>>> recording technologies like smartphones, cameras and audio
>> >>>>>>>> recorders...
>> >>>>>>>> [A] memorandum from the Congressional Research Service described
>> >>>>>>>> [an
>> >>>>>>>> earlier DARPA project of this type known as] EARS, as focusing on
>> >>>>>>>> speech
>> >>>>>>>> picked up from broadcasts and telephone conversations, “as well
>> >>>>>>>> as
>> >>>>>>>> extract clues about the identity of speakers” for “the military,
>> >>>>>>>> intelligence and law enforcement communities.”"
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/darpa-speech/ (Yes, "real
>> >>>>>>>> geeks
>> >>>>>>>> don't read Wired," but nonetheless its news pages are useful for
>> >>>>>>>> keeping
>> >>>>>>>> a finger on the pulse of Big Brother and his corporate Brethren.)
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> In short:
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> DARPA is researching the means by which every conversation you
>> >>>>>>>> have,
>> >>>>>>>> in-person, whether at work or with family or friends, gets picked
>> >>>>>>>> up
>> >>>>>>>> by
>> >>>>>>>> the mic in your smartphone or other portable device, and stored
>> >>>>>>>> on a
>> >>>>>>>> server, where DARPA's algorithms and human editors turn all of it
>> >>>>>>>> into
>> >>>>>>>> fast-searchable text, that could be used by your employer, the
>> >>>>>>>> military,
>> >>>>>>>> law enforcement, and intel agencies. Presumably the credit
>> >>>>>>>> bureaus,
>> >>>>>>>> insurance companies, and financial institutions will want "in" on
>> >>>>>>>> the
>> >>>>>>>> data as well.
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> Now connect that with this, about cell-site tracking and call
>> >>>>>>>> detail
>> >>>>>>>> records:
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> "The government maintained [that] Americans have no expectation
>> >>>>>>>> of
>> >>>>>>>> privacy of such cell-site records [call detail records or CDR]
>> >>>>>>>> because
>> >>>>>>>> they are in the possession of a third party — the mobile phone
>> >>>>>>>> companies."
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gps-drug-dealer-retrial/
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> The key point is that the gov's current position is that data
>> >>>>>>>> stored
>> >>>>>>>> on
>> >>>>>>>> a third party's servers have "no expectation of privacy." What
>> >>>>>>>> begins
>> >>>>>>>> with CDR will eventually include voicemail messages stored on the
>> >>>>>>>> mobile
>> >>>>>>>> phone companies' servers, and then eventually all of your live
>> >>>>>>>> in-person
>> >>>>>>>> conversations that are stored "in the cloud."
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> "Anything you say can and will be used against you..." Mark my
>> >>>>>>>> words.
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> Meanwhile people keep using gmail and Google Voice, and
>> >>>>>>>> smartphones
>> >>>>>>>> from
>> >>>>>>>> which they can't remove the batteries. Because nothing is more
>> >>>>>>>> important
>> >>>>>>>> than "convenience," right?
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> As a character in a sci-fi piece I wrote in the mid-1980s said,
>> >>>>>>>> "Why
>> >>>>>>>> put
>> >>>>>>>> a person in prison, when you can put prison in the person
>> >>>>>>>> instead?"
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> -G.
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> >>>>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> >>>>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> >>>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> >>>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> >>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> >>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> --
>> >>>>> -steve
>> >>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> >>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> >>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
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>> >>>>
>> >>> _______________________________________________
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